Commercial Income - the driver for large space retailing?

                                                                                      Shopper-density map Herb Sorensen

The current controversy ref retailers’ advance booking of commercial income and its impact on profit forecasts will be the subject of increasing press coverage in the coming months, especially as other major retailers feel the need to reassess and explain how their procedures differ…

In the meantime, Shopper-scientist Herb Sorensen, in his work The Problem: "Parked" Capital, and his use of shopper-density maps of retail stores, questions retailers’ use of large space.

The above extract is an accurate map of the time shoppers spend in the store. All those blue, and especially the dark blue areas, represent what he calls ‘parked capital’, defined as money tied up in real estate and inventory.

The data and map above are relevant to both inefficient use of floor space capital, but are also directly related to the massive unmoving inventory on most stores' shelves.

Sorensen goes on to suggest that the building of larger and larger stores has been driven more by the desire to offer more inventory - requiring more space - on behalf of the brand suppliers, who are paying for the space and other marketing services, than consumer need.

In other words, large space is NOT needed to accommodate the demands of the crowds of shoppers.

If this is the case, then following the UK's ‘re-audit’ of Commercial Income, redundant space may not be the only casualty…

Hat-tip to Mike Anthony for the pointer

3D printing - coming to a category near you?

                                                                                                  Hershey chocolate pic Technabob

TechRepublic have identified 10 companies using 3D printing in ground-breaking ways. Whilst six of the companies deal in engineering and allied fields, four innovators could present challenges in FMCG categories…

• Nike: The Nike Vapor Laser Talon, was designed for players running the 40 yard dash on football turf in the 2014 Super Bowl.
• Hasbro: In February, Hasbro announced a partnership with 3D Systems to “co-develop, co-venture and deliver new immersive, creative play experiences powered by 3D printing of toys for children and their families later this year.”
• Hershey's has partnered with 3D Systems to make a special 3D printer for making chocolate
• MakieLab: London-based MakieLab offers the ability to design your own Makie doll with MakieLab, which 3D prints 10 inch flexible fashion dolls from thermoplastic, allowing a choice of all of the features of the doll: face, eyes, jaw, smile, hair, and more

Still in doubt?
McKinsey analysts project that total 3D printed economic worth will be around USD$230-550bn per year by 2025, of which USD$100-300bn will be direct consumer products, such as toys.

Finally, see No 10 on the list:
Matter.io is a company that is making it easier to make, download, and share designs by embedding the files into websites so users can download and customise the designs…..

The growth of mobile - a zero-sum game?

                                                          pic: Brian Moore Brighton Pier 5-10-2014

This phone booth, at the entrance to Brighton Pier, the UK's most popular seaside destination, to my mind says it all for the future of landline utility...

Great ideas inevitably float to the top...

pic: Fabian Kirner

Hat tip to Andy Parker via Orlaith Whelan

Shopper-engagement at the checkout?

According to Reuters, the Venezuelan government has started to fingerprint shoppers at some state-run supermarkets, in a plan to combat food scarcity by weeding out smugglers and hoarders. Around 785,000 people have been registered in six state-run food store chains across the country, allowing them access to price-fixed products on the shelves.

So, adding fingerprints to name, address, occupation, age, sex, family structure, income-level, state-of-health, recreations and travel, dietary habits, insurance, debt-profile and bank-balance, completes the retailer’s knowledge of the consumer…

In other words, if ‘ownership’ of a consumer is defined by extent of knowledge, then retailers combining loyalty card and scanning data to produce a 100% shopper-profile have to have a greater claim to ownership of the consumer than a marketer knowing that the consumer is probably grey-haired and living alone in the country, two children having left home…

However, a NAM working in collaboration with a major customer represents potential access to that retailer insight....

So perhaps taking a fingerprint is merely an inevitable move towards ultimate consumer satisfaction, all under the watchful eye of our benevolent big sister….?

The NozamA approach to shipping from home?

Forget packaging and waiting in lines. Shyp picks up your items, packs, and sends them anywhere in the world using the lowest cost, most reliable option.

Although currently limited to San Francisco and New York, the idea fulfils a real need and is scalable…

The only issue is that with a slight tweak, Amazon could reverse its model, and take the business.
Given its geographical density of distribution, the addition of collecting has to represent further economies for amazing Amazon…

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan

Where now for Tesco NAMs?

Tesco NAMs have two choices:

• Await a return to ‘normal’ (and join all those other NAMs that are still awaiting a return to ‘ normal’ trade management following the 2007 global financial crisis..?)
• Or, accept that business is about making the best of the ‘here and now’….

Alternative actions?

• Ignore Tesco’s troubles? i.e. business as usual: illogical, given that nothing in Tesco is or will be the same, ever again..
• Do nothing? i.e. stop all initiatives: unwise given their 25%+ of the grocery market and equivalent access to ‘your’ consumer..
• Tailored initiatives? i.e. based on based on current circumstances, as we know them…

On the face of it, Tesco, a new customer, is now in a mode that is

• Ultra conservative
• Risk-averse
• Retro-focused and defensive
• Under new management, but distracted by re-audit, legal, City/share-price, Government, loss of market share…to be followed by good people jumping ship?
• Receptive to convincing ideas for growth, on a fair-share basis…
• Driven by a new team that has to succeed…

The way forward for NAMs has to be via initiatives that are

• Simple and direct
• Defensible
• Tailored to Tesco traffic-profiles (holding and optimising their current-customer types)

These initiatives must have

• Conservative/achievable forecasts
• Clear KPIs
• A results-based reward structure
• Error-free execution
• 100% availability
• Exclusivity in exchange for 100% compliance

In other words, the best opportunity you have had to work properly with Tesco in years…

A one-off approach to Aldi and Lidl?

Traditional NAMs and their marketing colleagues have been reared in a culture of continuity. In other words, we spent years building up relationships with consumers and customers, on the premise that a strategic approach to brand optimisation produced a predictable and acceptable return on investment, growing a level of brand equity that would carry us over the troughs in demand.

This all changed with the 2007 global financial crisis and the emergence of the savvy consumer, gradually morphing into the savvy buyer, each unwilling to outsource their purchase decision-making to marketers and retailers, in a continuous search for demonstrable value-for-money, for each purchase…

The results are evident in the successes of Aldi and Lidl at the expense of Tesco and the other mults…

We are now as good as yesterday’s sales results, everywhere…

Any supplier attempting to build up a continuous relationship with the discounters, soon realises that life in this channel consists of a series of one-off initiatives, each bearing little or no relationship with previous moves made with the retailer.

In fact, thinking about it, the same now holds true for dealings with the major multiples (the over-rider agreement is now seen as ineffectual and is fast becoming increasingly dis-credited as the row about commercial income escalates…).

And perhaps this is how it should be in business..

If this is the case, perhaps all branded manufacturers should target Aldi & Lidl with one-off experiments to help their colleagues become accustomed to discontinuity, developing skills that can then be applied, hopefully with even more effect, via their traditional customers, making each initiative ‘the best ever’, as if our livelihood depended upon it…as it probably does…